


Coast to Coast

by ColorlessPalette



Category: Scooby Doo - All Media Types, Scooby Doo on Zombie Island (1998)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Femslash, Forbidden Love, I'm Bad At Titles, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 13:16:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19394908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ColorlessPalette/pseuds/ColorlessPalette
Summary: Daphne feels as though she's trapped between two islands, bobbing up and down in the salty water that cuts her lungs deep.





	Coast to Coast

**Author's Note:**

> I rewrote this because I didn't like the direction the original was heading. So here's this instead.

There is something off about the way Lena Dupree treats her. 

Daphne might be top notch at solving mysteries, and she might frown at the idea of skepticism, but this oddity is something even she cannot begin to unravel. Though it has only been a couple of days, Lena has shown a series of signs that she is singling Daphne out from the rest of her company. Whether it be serving her the slightest bit extra of pancakes at the breakfast table, or having her shining brown eyes focus onto Daphne for a little longer than normal, the redhead reporter can infer that something is amiss. 

She begins to wonder if Lena is toying with her. Wants to take Fred for herself, most likely. This, to Daphne, seems to be the most plausible answer. Lena is always staring off in Fred’s direction. She is always taking his suggestions for meals to make. And, to Daphne’s chagrin, she always seems to know what buttons to press. It works. Freddy praises her cooking and offers to help with chores around the house. The more she thinks about them, the more Daphne’s blood begins to boil. Lena and Fred. Together. Although, she feels as though her anger is inflated in all of the wrong places. It is an odd sensation; something she can’t quite place with the feelings at hand. Daphne has always thought of Fred as her one and only, even though they technically aren’t going steady, and there is still an element of her jealousy and rage that she cannot quite place. 

The strangest thing, however, is how Simone seems to react to Lena’s gestures towards her. Whenever Lena does something of these calibers, Daphne can always spot Simone brooding in the corner, wearing a look of raw disdain. One night, she even hears an argument between the two. 

“Ms. Lenoir, I’m sorry…” Lena’s voice is meek, the barricade of a closed door bringing her volume down all the same. Daphne presses up against the door, ears straining against the grainy wooden frame. 

“Do you understand the risk; nay, the danger that you carry with these emotions, Lena?!” Simone’s words are loud, cold, and calculating; they are accented by the heaviness of her French cadence. 

“I never wanted it to come to this!” Lena cries suddenly, and Daphne takes her head off of the door when she hears the pain in the woman’s voice. 

“Nor did I,” Simone mutters. There is a pause, and Daphne can only imagine what expressions the two women are wearing. She wonders what has gotten them so riled up. 

Simone starts up again, authoritative tone making itself heard in her voice now. “If you cannot learn to control yourself, I shall have no choice but to exclude you from the ceremony. Do you understand, child?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

Footsteps make their way to the door, and Daphne practically scampers away. But not soon enough, as the door opens behind her and she is faced with Lena. Hesitantly turning around, she offers a small wave. 

“G-good evening, Miss Dupree.” 

Lena’s face converts to a light shade of red, barely noticeable. For reasons unknown to her, Daphne feels oddly calm watching this unfold. The Southern Belle folds her hands behind her back and gives a quick, awkward bow. “Likewise, Miss Blake.” 

The two stand in the hallway, unsure what to make of the other’s presence. Daphne hears an owl hoot in the distance and her attention is diverted to the window. The moon outside is almost full, and the bayou beneath seems to shimmer in its wake. 

“It’s quite lovely out tonight, isn’t it?” Daphne asks, hoping to distract from the fact that she eavesdropped on a very private and intense conversation. 

Lena’s awkward smile seems to falter, just for a minute. “Yes. Tomorrow night is the harvest moon.” 

“Ah! I’ve heard so much about it,” Daphne says, “One of your favorite times of year, I presume?” 

Whatever spark in Lena’s eyes seems to short out, and Daphne regrets the question almost instantly. Before she can open her mouth in apology, Lena interjects. 

“No.” 

She abruptly turns away, though it seems to Daphne that she has much more to get off of her chest. 

But she doesn’t press it.

~~~ 

The next time she sees Fred, she has to fight against the wave of guilt that pounds her deeper into her own mind. Daphne feels as though she's trapped between two islands, bobbing up and down in the salty water that cuts her lungs deep. Her heart is drifting from coast to coast, and drowns when she finds him sitting in the porch, coffee cup in hand; he is illuminated by the early colors of morning. 

“Hey Daph,” Fred says warmly. 

Every time she sees him it kills her, but today even more so. “Good morning, Fred.” 

He tilts his head, “Are you alright? You seem kind of low energy today.” 

Daphne says nothing, seating herself next to him and averting her eyes. Is this love? Or is Fred just another roadblock that her heart cannot get past? Nevertheless, Daphne knows for sure that she must sort her feelings out, for the girl in red and the man she’s known for so, so long. 

Daphne is pulled back to reality as Fred’s hand lands on her shoulder, causing her to tense up and let out a pathetic squeal of surprise. Her head snaps to her left and she is met with the wide blue eyes of Fred, clouded over with worry. 

“Are you okay?!” 

Daphne bites her lip with such force that the skin is in danger of breaking, not that it matters to her anymore. She inhales deeply and purses her lips. 

“I need to talk to you.” 

Fred’s face perks up, from knowing that she’s not in any real trouble, and adjusts his position to be more open to her. “I’m all ears.” 

_Where do I start?_ Daphne thinks. Where can she start? And more importantly, is she ready to? Daphne’s pink nails dig into the rotting porch wood. “Have you… ever been in love before?” 

Fred’s chipper smile turns downwards, and something very heavy glazes over his eyes. “Yes, I have been. And I still am.” 

The redhead feigns ignorance. She doesn't want to read into his possible advances, let alone think of them as advances. It only makes this all so much harder. “Well…” Daphne continues, her voice trembling. “I think I might be in love. And-“ 

A wave of horror and guilt overcomes her as Fred locks lips with her. Daphne feels him pouring his heart and soul into the kiss, and yet she can only sit still, her pink lips hanging lifelessly. All the while she is bashing herself over and over in her head for leading him on with her words. 

_You’re such a stupid girl,_ her mind screams. 

As soon as Fred is finished he has the realization that he did something wrong. “Daphne? I’m sorry if I-” 

And then he stares past her with wide eyes. 

She doesn’t need a psychic to tell what he is staring at; she can guess easily for reasons that she is in the process of pinpointing. Still, Daphne hesitantly looks over her shoulder to see Lena, who has dropped her tray of freshly squeezed lemonade, sending glass shards sprawling across the lawn. Even in the morning sunlight, Lena’s face manages to look as pale as a ghost’s. 

Fred is the first to open his mouth, “Lena, it’s not what it looks like! We were just-“ 

Lena doesn’t give him the chance to finish and sprints away, a look of pain streaking her face, and Daphne knows that it’s not because of stepping on the glass shards. 

Fred puts a hand to his face and buried himself into shame. “God, I… Daphne, I'm really sorry.” 

She looks on as Fred exalts his self loathing, still feeling the sting of his kiss on her tongue. “I caught you off guard, and I just shouldn’t have done that without saying anything!” He looks as though he is holding back pitiful tears. “A true man wouldn’t have done that.” 

Daphne stands up and looks down to him practically cowering at her heels. She feels disgust for her rash actions welling up in her heart, until it feels as though her chest is going to burst. 

“No Freddy, you…” she pauses, getting a good look at his face. Fred Jones has a solemn look in his eyes, uncannily similar to Lena’s the night prior. The woman gulps, and finishes with, “It's okay. It’s going to be okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” 

Daphne leaves Fred to himself and turns towards the door. As she approaches the kitchen, Daphne can hear the sound of crying. Lena crying. She doesn’t want to interact further with this woman but deep down the redhead knows the feeling of unrequited love. A bitter jealousy nips at her heart. Fred was hers. He had to be hers, right? 

She ascends the stairs and makes it to her guest room, Lena’s sobs still audible. The hatred is replaced by guilt, and she naps uncomfortably to the sounds throughout the house, trying to get Lena’s hurt expression out of her mind. 

~~~ 

Daphne Blake, in all her years of mystery solving, had never felt as though her life is in danger. After all, the claws of a moat monster are simple styrofoam; the jaws of a deadly gargoyle harmless plastic. But as she sits in the underground prison, invisible ropes cutting into her skin, for the first time in a long time Daphne feels raw fear. Simone and Lena stand before a hideous looking cat statue, their backs to the sleuths. Daphne strains her ears to hear what they are saying, but her attempts are drowned out by the pleading of her friends. 

Somehow, she wants to believe that this is all some sort of sick, twisted joke. Daphne squirms around in her bindings to get a better look at Lena. Despite her assumed jealous and bitter nature, not even somebody like her could be this cruel and heartless, right? 

_The only one jealous and bitter around here is you,_ Daphne thinks despite her current situation, but immediately squashes it down. 

All of a sudden, Lena turns and Daphne feels her heart drop into her stomach. The image that the moonlight reflects is not that of a beautiful girl, but an empty husk that casts an inhuman shadow across the cave floor. The reporter’s heart catches in her throat as Lena directs her gaze towards her, and her alone. The Southern woman’s mouth moves, but Daphne can’t make out the words. She can, however, see a tinge of regret on Lena’s distorted face. 

“I hope you each have taken in the faces around you,” Simone hisses, baring her clawed fingers in front of her prey, “because it’s the last time you’ll ever see your friends alive again.” 

The feline women close in on the helpless victims and Daphne’s eyes widen, silently begging for her life to continue, her heart to still beat. She can’t hold Fred’s hand now, but strangely Daphne feels that she wants the comfort of somebody else; a woman that’s long gone and possibly never existed. 

Daphne squeals as firm, large hands find their way to her shoulders. 

“I’m so sorry,” a southern drawl whispers. 

There is only a moment where she feels as though her youthful spirit is melting away before two familiar faces come barreling through the cave entrance and slam into the two women. 

“Like what are you guys doing, charades?” Shaggy inquires while steadying himself. 

“Jinkies, look out!” Velma shouts. 

Everything after that is a blur of motion to Daphne. One minute Lena and Simone are standing in the center of the room, and the next two beasts are charging towards the gang with carnal thirst. Daphne feels the ropes suddenly loosen around her as Velma unworks the small wax effigy in her hands. The freedom is full and powerful; Daphne stretches her arms out and moves her shoulders, ignoring the stings of rope burns around her torso. 

“This is a piece of Lena’s blouse,” Velma states, picking up the torn crimson fabric. 

The only thing left of Lena. Daphne thinks back to the argument, and the door. How could such an innocent looking girl become something as ravenous as this? The cloth looks pitiful, waving in the faint breeze that makes its way from the chilly night. Almost as pitiful as Daphne feels. 

“You’re not the only ones who like playing with dolls!” Daphne finds herself screaming, as she and Velma clutch dolls of Simone and Lena in their hands. With all the force of a freight truck, she slams Lena’s wax doll into the wall, eyes tightly shut. Daphne hears Lena yowl in pain as her body makes contact with the rough cave surface. Something in the reporter breaks and she continues to smash the doll into the rocky wall. Each bout cracks her heart further and further, Lena’s bone chilling roars echoing through the cavern. 

_Snap out of it. Please. Snap out of it Lena!_

“That’s enough Daphne!” Velma rips the wax out of her friend’s hands, almost snapping it in half. Her bespeckled eyes are wide. “What’s the matter with you?” 

“I… I don’t know what came over me…” Daphne puts a hand to her groggy head. Her eyes sting and she feels something warm and wet seep out of them. A tear splashes onto the floor. Is _this_ love? Perhaps she’s been tampered with, enchanted by the voodoo magic in those dolls. Or maybe Daphne Blake is just losing her sanity, amongst all of the rotting corpses and violent cat beasts. Is any of this even real? She places both hands onto her head now and collapses, kneeling on the hard rock beneath her. Heavy footsteps make their way towards her crippled form. 

“Mi ss...B... lake?” A voice rasps; so foreign, so familiar. Images of Fred and Lena flash through her head. 

Strong hands wrap themselves around her waist in a hurry, and Daphne is lifted into the air. “C’mon!” Beau exclaims. “We’ve gotta get out of here!” 

Daphne knows there is no point. They are all going to perish, at either the swing of a dead pirate’s sword or a werecat’s watering fangs. The predators close in on them, gnashing teeth glistening in what remains of the moonlight. Daphne does not close her eyes. If these are to be her last moments than she wants to experience them head on, every aspect of her deadly angel’s black hair and swaying tail accounted for; the once tender hands that will soon tear her apart. Lena growls, and prepares to lunge. 

Then the yowls come. They emerge from the werecats’ open maws and rip through the air, catching the gang off guard. Daphne turns to look at her companions. Velma seems as though she is about to quip in reference to their survival, but even she is stopped in her tracks when the werecats howl with agony. Fred and Shaggy watch in horror, Scooby clinging to the latter’s shirt and whimpering. Beau just shuts his eyes and looks away. 

Daphne does not want to witness the carnage. Yet, morbid curiosity pulls her head in the direction of the cats, and what her eyes meet is beyond comprehension. The mangled beasts claw at their own fur, ripping gooey patches off and revealing fast decaying skin. Their eyes sink into the back of their heads before they can even attempt to scratch them out, and every yowl that they throw into the darkness manages to get more garbled and unintelligible as the process goes on. Soon the cat noises turn into screams; real, blood curdling screams that reflect the voices of what they used to be. 

Jacques is the first to go. His bulky form disintegrates into nothing, and his skin peels off of the skeleton beneath, reminding Daphne of all the times she’s ripped a mask off of a criminal. Simone follows suit, her jaw exploding with a sickening pop akin to blowing up bubblegum, and her hair becoming grayer and grayer until it is nothing more than stringy threads on the ground. And then… 

“LENA!” Daphne shrieks, as the monster falls apart in front of her eyes. Lena’s bone structure crumbles to the ground and smashes on impact, spraying the redhead with bone shards. It is at this moment that Daphne can no longer look, and she forces her eyes shut. But she doesn’t think of her ears in time. 

Lena’s screams pierce her eardrums and slowly fade away, and when Daphne finally looks all that is left of the three people who had welcomed them to the island, and the zombies who had haunted them is dust, strewn about all over the floor. The rest of the gang open their eyes and collect their thoughts, as a new day makes itself known with rays of sunlight that streak through the open ceiling above them. 

“C-come on, Daph,” Fred stammers after a while, when everybody else has exited the cavern. “We should get going…” 

As Fred wanders out into the daylight, Daphne crouches and feels the dust under her hands shift. Scooping some up, it almost seems impossible that they once composed real, living beings. 

“Lena…” Daphne whispers so quietly that the space does not reflect her words like a cave should. She puts the dust down. 

And then Daphne quietly sobs. Sobs for the man who loves her, the people who have been in her life, and the woman that never was and never will be… ever again.

**Author's Note:**

> Damn this took too long to get updated.


End file.
